San Jose candidate temporarily decertified as a police officer

A San Jose police sergeant and City Council candidate has had his officer certification temporarily suspended by the state police board amid allegations of mortgage fraud.

The state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training temporarily decertified Tam Troung on Sept. 18 due to his pending criminal proceedings. The state board decertifies officers when they have committed serious misconduct, such as sexual assault, abuse of power or violation of the law.

“I am completely innocent,” Truong told San José Spotlight. “When all the facts are presented, that will be clear to everyone.”

The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office charged Truong with grand theft related to mortgage fraud, in a one-count criminal complaint filed on Sept. 5. The complaint alleged Truong unlawfully took personal property and money — exceeding $100,000 — from Orange Coast Title of Northern California, PHH Mortgage Services, Newrez LLC and American Home Mortgage.

In 2022, Orange Coast Title Company sued Truong was for allegedly defrauding an escrow officer, which allowed Truong to ditch his mortgage and collect nearly $540,000 from the sale of a home.

The San Jose Police Department put Truong on administrative leave after he was charged with grand theft. SJPD representatives did not respond to a request for comment on Truong’s decertification.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pulled his endorsement for Truong after he was charged by the DA’s office.

“This single-count complaint filed by the district attorney’s office represents nothing more than an allegation,” Truong previously told San José Spotlight. “It is based on a misunderstanding of all the facts in this case. This matter has been settled through a civil proceeding, which is the appropriate venue. There is no evidence that I intended to mislead anyone.”

Truong, who’s worked in law enforcement for two decades, is running against incumbent Councilmember Domingo Candelas for the District 8 San Jose City Council seat in November.

San José Spotlight last year also reported that Truong at one point owed more than $30,000 to a former employee of his private security company, Training and Protective Services. He started the company in 2012 to offer private patrols for neighborhoods just as the city’s police force was hemorrhaging officers due to Measure B, a ballot measure that slashed retirement benefits for SJPD officers.

One of Truong’s employees, Kevin Halverson, claimed he worked nearly 1,700 hours in the first half of 2013, but was paid for only a little more than 500 hours, in a wage theft case filed with the state labor commissioner in 2014.

Following a hearing and testimony from Halverson and some of his co-workers in early 2015, the labor commissioner ordered Truong to pay Halverson $34,071 in wages, damages, interest and penalties. Truong’s company dissolved a short time later.

“Running for elected office as a decertified police officer isn’t a very good look for a candidate,” Steve Slack, president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, told San José Spotlight. “Voters deserve to know the truth and we encourage Tam Truong to publicly release, in its entirety, the settlement agreement that he says resolves the civil lawsuit that accused him of defrauding a mortgage company out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Contact Joyce Chu at [email protected] or @joyce_speaks on X, formerly known as Twitter.